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Concrete over asphalt?

I am pouring a small pad to act as the first step to my front porch. Half the step will land on the driveway and half in the dirt. I will dig out and lay gravel in the dirt area, but was wondering if I can pour concrete right on top of the asphalt or do I need to cut it away?

The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything. ~Edward Phelps

Unless you have a saw you're willing to throw away, I'd go rent an electric jack hammer with a wide spade bit. Should get a fairly straight cut. Jim.

Coolmeadow Setters...Exclusively Irish! When Irish Eyes are smiling....They're usually up to something!!
Home of Irish Setter Rescue of North Texas.No, I'm not an electrician. Any information I share is purely what I would do myself. If in doubt, hire an electrician!Member of the G0691 fan club!At a minimum, I'm Pentatoxic...Most likely I'm a Pentaholic. There seems to be no known cure. Pentatonix, winners of The Sing Off, s3.

Concrete the best stuff on earth!

Buy a 7 1/4 concrete blade or as called diamond blade for your circular saw and cut a straight line in the asphalt. Then take a pick axe and chop away the asphalt. You can use the small pieces of asphalt anything less than an inch an a half as the base for your concrete make sure you tamp it down with a tamp.

Dig out the dirt, fill with rock, compact well, pour pad over asphalt and rock. This is a pad for foot traffic not a driveway. If the pad is uniform thickness it is not going to crack, at worst it would rock.

IN NJ the road Dept regularly patches old concrete roads with asphalt. It's great stuff~!! Only destroyed one of my cars when a boat size chink came un-moored in an ice storm and ripped my undercarriage out.

We used to live in the 'burbs. One of our patio improvements called for some new concrete steps. The contractor poured over asphalt. Several years later, and foot traffic only, the step would rock. Not a problem, we thought. Until someone stepped onto the rocking step and fell. Thank God for a family tree that is sprinkled with lawyers! I will always recommend cutting through and removing the asphalt. HTH

Since it is a small section I guess I'll play ultra safe and cut it out. I think I am going to try to score the asphalt with a circular saw and abrasive blade and then use a rotohammer to finish it off. I probably only need to cut about 5-6 lineal feet total.

Hey thanks for the help.

Someday I'll post some pics if I can ever finish this year long addition and front porch project.

The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything. ~Edward Phelps

Off to the Depot to find a masonry blade for the sawzall. Hadn't thought of that and I always enjoy using the sawzall. I didn't know they even had masonry blades for them. Thanks for the tip.
I have been procrastinating a little with this step in the process and have used my time to install the decking. Ipe is beautiful and hard. My abs are sore from the pressure required to drill the countersunk plug holes. Cool to see it smoke after each hole is drilled though!

The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything. ~Edward Phelps